Rosie's All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed Baking Book

Rating:
Summary: The title says it all...
Review: Since I lived in Boston for a while I had the distinct pleasure of eating cakes that had actually been made at Rosie's Bakery. Sadly, after a while the quality dropped. For example, the icings started to taste more of shortening than of butter. Now, however, I can reclaim the original favorites in my own kitchen. As the title "All-Butter, Fresh Cream, Sugar-Packed" indicates, these recipes at least stick to using premium ingredients.

Each chapter starts off with some of the things Judy Rosenberg learned along the way, and her explanations for how to make these things work. Little things like lining cake pans with parchment paper, cooling cake layers in pans, etc. If you're a relatively new cook it'll be very useful. If you're an experienced cook it might be worth a glance through to see if there are any tricks you haven't picked up yet.

There are some truly decadent treats in here: this is not a cookbook you should use while dieting! You'll find Rosie's Famous Chocolate Sour-Cream Cake Layers, Queen Raspberry Cake, and one of our favorites, Cold Fudge Sundae Cake, which involves whipped cream and raspberries. In the fruit arena you'll find a Bittersweet Orange Cake with a Lemon Glaze, an Applesauce Raisin Cake, Mustard Gingerbread, etc. You'll even find a few cheesecakes, as well as a handful of frostings and fillings. I think a little more variety would have been nice, but the things that are here are quite good. I'm not entirely sure why there's a cookie chapter here since there's an entirely separate Rosie's Bakery "Cookie Book." It seems a bit redundant, particularly for those people interested in buying both. There are also bar cookies, pies and tarts, custards and puddings, and so on; the custards and puddings are my favorites.

I'm not overly fond of the layout of this book. The little hearts all over the place and the pink chapter intro pages are a bit much. Chapter titles like "Cutie Pies" come off as saccharine--titles are often puns. The layout isn't very user-friendly. The quality of the food rates a five, but the presentation issues are just enough to bring it down a bit. Call my rating a 4.5.

Rating:
Summary: All the in's and out's needed for foolproof baking.
Review: This is my all time favorite book. I liked that she was strong enough to put such a Title on a book when we live in such a so called Health conscience world. We all have to live a little and with this cookbook you can. I have never had one recipe fail that I've made from this. And if not for anything else buy it for her pie crust recipes and hints. It would make a great wedding gift for a bride as she explains all the necessary hints for baking, but in easy to read language. She doesn't scare you off by making you think you have to be a professional to do the recipes in her book.